A 'Fairtrade' plan for our growing artificial intelligence industry

By Alan Finkel

Here’s a question: do you consider yourself to be a trusting person? Or let me put it another way: would you put your life in the hands of a total stranger?

You do. Hundreds if not thousands of times, every day. Take me, for example.

Illustration: Matt Davidson

This morning I woke up. I switched on the light – trusting that I wouldn’t be electrocuted by a faulty lamp, or cord, or socket. I prepared my breakfast – trusting that I wouldn’t be poisoned by salmonella in my factory-processed muesli.

I walked from my hotel across the street in peak hour. Hundreds of cars bearing down on me. And nothing to protect me except a red light and a white line.

All of these decisions make sense to us, because we know that we live in a society where human behaviour is governed by conventions and rules.

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That capacity to trust in unknown humans, not because of a belief in our innate goodness, but because of the systems that we humans have made, is the true genius of our species.

We can collaborate, and innovate – because we can trust.

Boo!

Now let’s replace a fellow human in these day to day interactions with artificial intelligence: AI. What would it take for you to put the same level of trust in AI as you would extend to a human?

To chat with your child? To drive your taxi? To read your brain scan? To scan your face at a concert, at work, or in a supermarket?

What is it about AI that unnerves us? I suspect it’s a combination of two things.

First, we lack information. The knowledge seems concentrated in a small community of experts. Perhaps 22,000 worldwide are qualified to the level of a PhD in AI. People with rare skills in high demand come at an eye-watering price. That makes them very hard to keep in universities and public agencies.

Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook hasn't helped allay fears.

Photo: Bloomberg

It’s not unknown for technology developers to buy up IT faculties. And whether these experts work in industry, or the public sector, or universities, there are often commercial or security reasons to keep quiet about their activities.

Consider Google. In footage beamed around the world last week, Google debuted an AI that makes phone calls on your behalf, in a human voice, and chats with the human who answers.

Now for 68 years the world has been waiting for an AI that could fool us into thinking it was human. We call it the Turing Test, named after the scientist who proposed it in 1950, Alan Turing.

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He began with the question “can machines think?” Since we can’t agree on a single test for “thinking”, he replaced it with a thought experiment he called the “imitation game”: can we build a machine that would pass as human, to humans, if we couldn’t see it, and judged it by its words?

Watching Google’s AI book a haircut and a table at a restaurant, some observers say the Turing test was met. And as a result, your world has changed - because every phone call you make or receive now carries a niggling doubt. That could be a machine.

Hand in hand with our lack of knowledge is our lack of foreknowledge. We give up our data today without knowing what others might be able to do with it tomorrow.

When you uploaded your photos to Facebook, did you expect that Facebook would be able to scan them, name all the people, identify your tastes in food and clothing and hobbies, diagnose certain genetic disorders, like Down Syndrome, decide on your personality type, and package all that information for advertisers?

Probably not. But we can’t unpick our choices.

Human-sounding AI machines like Hal in 2001: A Space Odyssey have made the idea of AI frightening.

Photo: MPTV/Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer

One response to these questions would be to conclude that the only safe way forward is to ban AI. That would be a tragic mistake for Australia.

A ban would simply discourage research and development in the places where we most want to see it: reputable institutions, like CSIRO’s Data61, and our universities. Of course, the fastest way to end up with a total ban is to allow a free-for-all. A free-for-all that allows unscrupulous and unthinking and just plain incompetent people to do their worst.

No: we want rules that allow us to trust AI, just as they allow us to trust our fellow humans. So my question again: what would it take for you to extend your trust?

When was the last time you read the terms and conditions before clicking “Accept”? What we need is an agreed standard and a clear signal, so we individual consumers don’t need expert knowledge to make ethical choices, and companies that want your business know from the outset how they are expected to behave.

So my proposal is a trustmark. Its working title is “the Turing Certificate”, in honour of Alan Turing.

Companies can apply for Turing certification, and if they meet the standards and comply with the auditing requirements, they can display the Turing Stamp.

Then consumers and governments could use their purchasing power to reward and encourage ethical AI, just as they currently look for the “Fairtrade” logo on coffee.

For AI, mandatory certification would be cumbersome. The voluntary Turing system would allow responsible companies to opt in.

Is this a global measure that Australia could help to foster?

Surely, we have more to gain than most. Where we compete in the global market, we compete on quality.

A system that verifies quality and prioritises ethics will reward Australia. Last week’s federal budget made what I have described as a “promising first instalment”. $30 million has been allocated for AI, including an AI roadmap and a national AI ethics framework.

I hope we can use our influence to shape a responsible direction for the world.

This article is an edited extract of a keynote speech Alan Finkel, Australia's Chief Scientist, delivered to a Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA) event on artificial intelligence, and originally published on The Conversation.